The present invention generally relates to a method and apparatus for improving data transfer rates, and more particularly to a method and apparatus for accelerating data through communication networks.
The bandwidth problem is a lingering issue with many communication networks, particularly the Internet. No Internet surfer enjoys the long delays associated with viewing graphically intensive web sites. The use of the Internet continues to grow at an exponential rate. As the number of users has increased, so has the need for a solution to deliver data over the Internet quickly.
Most Internet users connect to the Internet by dialup modems running at 28.8 kilobits per second (kps) to 56.6 kps. Wireless mobile users have a bigger bandwidth problem. The best wireless connections are currently below 19.2 kps. Corporate landline users generally enjoy faster connections of 128 kps or more. However, even at the higher connection speeds, users can find themselves waiting endlessly for a web site to download to their personal computer because of the size of data at the site.
The majority of web sites that tend to hold a user""s interest use color-rich graphic files for appeal. These graphics can consume over 50% of the data volume found within the web site. Digital audio and video files similarly require millions of bytes per second for transmission. The balance of the contents on a typical web page consists of text files, most of which are transmitted in raw uncompressed form.
Due to the rapid growth of Internet usage and the large size of most digital files on web pages, it has become apparent that a dire need exists for a seamless transport engine to move data quickly through the Internet. The ideal transport engine would allow the Internet user to control the rate at which information is received or sent.
FIG. 1 illustrates a conventional prior art arrangement for communications between a client and the Internet. In particular, a low speed communications link is utilized between a Client 12 and an Internet service provider (ISP) 16. This low speed communications link will typically take the form of a conventional telephone voice line of the Plain Old Telephone System (POTS) or a Cellular Wireless Network. A high speed communications link (e.g., T1/T3 carrier) is utilized between the Internet 18 and ISP 16. It is readily apparent that the data transfer rate will be constrained by the low speed communications link between client 12 and ISP 16. Therefore, despite the high speed communications link provided between ISP 16 and the Internet 18, the user of Client 12 will experience slow data transfer rates due to the low speed communications link between Client 12 and ISP 16. The present invention addresses this and other drawbacks of the prior art.
It can be readily appreciated that the need often arises to transmit large amounts of data across a variety of communication networks (e.g., the Internet; the Plain Old Telephone System (POTS); Cellular Wireless Networks; Local Area Networks (LAN); Wide Area Networks (WAN); and Satellite Communications Systems). A major example is digital audio data. The volume of data required to encode raw audio data is large. Consider a stereo audio data sampled at 44100 samples per second and with a maximum of 16 bits used to encode each sample per channel. A one-hour recording of a raw digital music with that fidelity will occupy about 606 megabytes (MB) of storage space. To transmit such an audio file over 56 kilobits per second communications channel (e.g., the rate supported by most POTS through modems), will take over 24.6 hours.
One approach for dealing with the bandwidth limitation is to compress the data before transmission. For certain kinds of data (e.g., text, computer executable file, financial data) the compression/decompression process must reproduce a perfect reproduction of the transmitted data when decoded. Such a process is described as being xe2x80x9clossless.xe2x80x9d In some other cases, especially when the transmitted information is to be perceived and not to be read (e.g., pictures, audio, video data) the compression/decompression process need not result in a perfect reconstruction of the transmitted data. The process is described as being xe2x80x9clossyxe2x80x9d when the reconstructed data is not a perfect copy of the original.
The present invention provides a method and apparatus for transmitting and receiving data at faster rates through communication networks, such as the Internet.
Moreover, the present invention selectively employs both xe2x80x9closslessxe2x80x9d and xe2x80x9clossyxe2x80x9d compression methods in order to compress the information being moved across a given network.
According to the present invention there is provided a system for data transfer acceleration comprising: (1) an accelerator client for intercepting data transferred between a client computer and a communications network service provider via a first communications link, wherein said accelerator client compresses data transmitted from the client computer to the communications network service provider, and forwards said compressed data to said communications network service provider, and said accelerator client decompresses compressed data transmitted from the communications network service provider to the client computer, and forwards said uncompressed data to said client computer; and (2) an accelerator server for intercepting data transferred between the communications network service provider and a communications network, via a second communications link, wherein said accelerator server decompresses compressed data transmitted from the communications network service provider to the communications network, and forwards the uncompressed data to the communications network, and said accelerator server compresses data transmitted from the communications network to the communications network service provider, and forwards the compressed data to the communications network service provider.
According to another aspect of the present invention there is provided a method of data transfer acceleration comprising: intercepting data transferred between a client computer and a communications network service provider via a first communications link, wherein data transmitted from the client computer to the communications network service provider is compressed, and forwarded to said communications network service provider, and decompressing compressed data transmitted from the communications network service provider to the client computer, and forwarding said uncompressed data to said client computer; and
intercepting data transferred between the communications network service provider and a communications network, via a second communications link, wherein compressed data transmitted from the communications network service provider to the communications network is decompressed, and forwarded to the communications network, and data transmitted from the communications network to the communications network service provider is compressed, and forwarded to the communications network service provider.
According to still another aspect of the present invention there is provided a system for data transfer acceleration comprising: (1) an accelerator client for intercepting data transferred between a client computer and a communications network service provider via a first communications link, wherein said accelerator client selectively compresses data transmitted from the client computer to the communications network service provider, and forwards the intercepted data to said communications network service provider, and said accelerator client decompresses any compressed data transmitted from the communications network service provider to the client computer, and forwards the intercepted data to said client computer; and (3) an accelerator server for intercepting data transferred between the communications network service provider and a communications network, via a second communications link, wherein said accelerator server decompresses any compressed data transmitted from the communications network service provider to the communications network, and forwards the intercepted data to the communications network, and said accelerator server selectively compresses data transmitted from the communications network to the communications network service provider, and forwards the intercepted data to the communications network service provider.
In accordance with yet another aspect of the present invention there is provided a method of data transfer acceleration comprising:
intercepting data transferred between a client computer and a communications network service provider via a first communications link, wherein data transmitted from the client computer to the communications network service provider is selectively compressed, and forwarded to said communications network service provider, and decompressing compressed data transmitted from the communications network service provider to the client computer, and forwarding said uncompressed data to said client computer; and
intercepting data transferred between the communications network service provider and a communications network, via a second communications link, wherein compressed data transmitted from the communications network service provider to the communications network is decompressed, and forwarded to the communications network, and data transmitted from the communications network to the communications network service provider is selectively compressed, and forwarded to the communications network service provider.
An advantage of the present invention is the provision of a method and apparatus for increasing a data transfer rate.
Another advantage of the present invention is the provision of a method and apparatus for data transfer acceleration that operates independently of any special network protocol.
Another advantage of the present invention is the provision of a method and apparatus for data transfer acceleration that operates whenever a TCP/IP network connection to an Accelerator Server is available.
Another advantage of the present invention is the provision of a method and apparatus for data transfer acceleration that operates with the public Internet, independently from any Internet service provider (ISP).
Another advantage of the present invention is the provision of a method and apparatus for data transfer acceleration that operates within a corporate intranet.
Still another advantage of the present invention is the provision of a method and apparatus for data transfer acceleration that operates through firewalls.
Still another advantage of the present invention is the provision of a method and apparatus for data transfer acceleration that operates with corporate HTTP proxies.
Yet another advantage of the present invention is the provision of a method and apparatus for data transfer acceleration that operates in Virtual Public Networks.
Yet another advantage of the present invention is the provision of a method and apparatus for data transfer acceleration that supports both wireless and wire line systems.
Yet another advantage of the present invention is the provision of a method and apparatus of data transfer acceleration that selectively uses xe2x80x9closslessxe2x80x9d and xe2x80x9clossyxe2x80x9d methods in order to compress/decompress data.
Still other advantages of the invention will become apparent to those skilled in the art upon a reading and understanding of the following detailed description, accompanying drawings and appended claims.